# Privacy Amplification via Random Participation in Federated Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.01556 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01556/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 20 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 May 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Deep Learning with Differential Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.00133/) (2016)
- [Deep Leakage from Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08935/) (2019)
- [The Secret Sharer: Evaluating and Testing Unintended Memorization in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.08232/) (2018)
- [Inverting Gradients -- How easy is it to break privacy in federated learning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.14053/) (2020)
- [Exploiting Unintended Feature Leakage in Collaborative Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04049/) (2018)
- [Differentially Private Federated Learning: A Client Level Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.07557/) (2017)
- [Privacy Amplification by Subsampling: Tight Analyses via Couplings and Divergences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.01647/) (2018)
- [Subsampled R'enyi Differential Privacy and Analytical Moments Accountant](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.00087/) (2018)
- [Improving the Gaussian Mechanism for Differential Privacy: Analytical Calibration and Optimal Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.06530/) (2018)
- [R'enyi Differential Privacy of the Sampled Gaussian Mechanism](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10530/) (2019)
- [Client Selection in Federated Learning: Convergence Analysis and Power-of-Choice Selection Strategies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01243/) (2020)
- [Amplification by Shuffling: From Local to Central Differential Privacy via Anonymity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.12469/) (2018)
- [Optimal Client Sampling for Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.13723/) (2020)
- [Updates-Leak: Data Set Inference and Reconstruction Attacks in Online Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01067/) (2019)
- [Hiding Among the Clones: A Simple and Nearly Optimal Analysis of Privacy Amplification by Shuffling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.12803/) (2020)
- [Towards Flexible Device Participation in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.06954/) (2020)
- [Privacy Amplification via Random Check-Ins](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.06605/) (2020)
- [Privacy Amplification for Federated Learning via User Sampling and Wireless Aggregation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01953/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Sparse Random Networks for Communication-Efficient Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.15328/) (2022)
- [Federated Continual Learning: Concepts, Challenges, and Solutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07059/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Running a randomized algorithm on a subsampled dataset instead of the entire dataset amplifies differential privacy guarantees. In this work, in a federated setting, we consider random participation of the clients in addition to subsampling their local datasets. Since such random participation of the clients creates correlation among the samples of the same client in their subsampling, we analyze the corresponding privacy amplification via non-uniform subsampling. We show that when the size of the local datasets is small, the privacy guarantees via random participation is close to those of the centralized setting, in which the entire dataset is located in a single host and subsampled. On the other hand, when the local datasets are large, observing the output of the algorithm may disclose the identities of the sampled clients with high confidence. Our analysis reveals that, even in this case, privacy guarantees via random participation outperform those via only local subsampling.
